Spider-Man: Swinging Home
by Fanfan118
Summary: Swinging back after summer vacation, now with spider-powers and a secret identity, everything was going to be different for Peter Parker. But nothing turns out as expected for both for Spider-Man and Peter. Peter will have to deal with both of his two lifes and more, all while getting home in time for curfew.
1. Last day of summer vacation (rewritten)

**Spider-Man: swinging home**

**Issue one: Swinging onto the scene**

The red and blue paint slowly dripped down the wall.

Not his best work he had to admit, stashing the spray can back into his backpack. But it was already getting dark and he was rushing to get in one more before the end of summer vacation.

He plugged headphones in his ears with a quick look around, slipped out the alley. He made his way back onto the unfamiliar streets of Queens, past tall apartment buildings, shops and underneath a subway bridge.

His uncle really gave him the best tips for spots, even if he had to use the subway getting there from Brooklyn. Not like his parents were going to find out. They wouldn't be home for hours. Some gala night thing for a new police captain or something? He hadn't really been paying attention.

His dad had told him about six million times not to go roaming around. ' _The streets are getting more dangerous with crime going up' _, or some stupid stuff like that.

_Dangerous _, he thought back to the mask he had sprayed and smiled. Yeah, right dangerous here, sure.

Of course, his dad was less than enthusiastic about Queen's newest crime fighter.

He was jogging by a streetlight, sticking one of the stickers he had drawn onto it, when he suddenly heard a s hrieking alarm sound that pierced through the music from his headphones. His head snapped over and he saw red lights of an alarm flashing from inside a jewelry store on the other side of the street. The shapes of two men appeared on top of the building, each with a bag over a shoulder.

His first impulse was to run, just like his dad told him, but then he saw a red and blue bluer dash through the air above him heading for the building.

"¡Ni hablar!" What are the chances that he'd actually see him?

Still not believing his luck, excitement won out over his fear. He got out his phone and rushed over to the other side, up a fire escape ladder to get a better view of what was going down.

"Easy as taking candy from a baby!" The thug in the green striped shirt laughed, kicking in the door to the roof. "A million-buck candy!"

"How are you kidding Marco? Once the big man takes his cut for that fancy new equipment, we'll be lucky to get a dime." His partner in crime O'Hirn complained.

They ran to the edge of the building.

"Just quit talkn' and jump!" Marko held onto his loot bag tightly and prepared to jump.

Then he suddenly heard a thwip sound beside him.

"O'Hirn?" He turned around to see his partner spun up in a web, hanging from the radio tower on the building.

"Having a late-night stroll, you two?" An annoying voice quipped. "Didn't take you for the type, Marko."

Flint Marko let out a frustrated moan. Just as he had expected, there was a figure in a red and blue suit squatting on the radio tower.

"Not him again!" O'Hirn called, helplessly dangling in the air. "Wait till I get down here, you freak!"

The costumed freakshow laughed at that, pulling at the web, making the thug spin in the air.

"Get over here you spandexed creep!" Marko yelled from the ground, getting into a fighting stance. This time that guy wouldn't ruin his take!

"Much obliged." The costumed hero jumped down with a somersault, landing directly in front of him.

He tried hitting the creep with the bag full of diamonds, but he slipped out of the way effortlessly.

"You know Marco, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you liked getting thrashed by me. What is this? Like the third time this summer?"

"Arr!" he groaned, again unable to hit him, as he jumped out of the way. Frustrated, Marko threw away the loot bag and reached into his pocket. "Not this time you don't! Wait till you get a load of this!"

He got out a small strange looking silver gun with a blue shining core and shot straight at him.

"Wow!" Just in the nick of time, the annoying spider-freak dodged out of the way. As the bullet flew, for a moment, it seemed to shine in a strange blue light.

"What garage sale did you get that from? That's so flashy!"

"Shut up!" Marko shot again.

And again, he dodged.

"Sorry, can't play around anymore. School night." Taking a knee to aim, the freak shot a web.

But it zipped straight past Marko.

"Ha, miss!" He laughed, taking aim. "Got you now web-creep!" Then he saw the web head pull and heard a noise zipping from behind him.

"Oh," was the last thing Flint Marco was able to mutter, as his head turned, before his loot back came flying back at him, hitting him in the head.

"Woohoo!" The air against his mask, Queens streets below and buildings to his side dashing passed as he went full speed.

That is how you made the best out of the last day of summer vacation! And just enough time to get home to May for dinner too.

Tomorrow one of his teachers would probably make him write a two-thousand-word essay about how he spent his summer vacation.

_How I spend my summer vacation, by Peter Benjamin Parker_

_I played lots of video games with Ned. Went to the national history museum with May. Texted a bunch with Harry. Binged watched an unhealthy amount of tv shows. And in the last week I noticed that Ms. Warren gave us homework over the summer, so I pulled an all-nighter for that. )Thanks for that btw, Ms. Warren…) _

_And the absolute best thing was that I got a brand-new internship at Stark industries!_

_Other than that, standard summer vacation stuff._

Something like that, but if he would really write about what he did in his summer vacation, he wouldn't need two thousand words. He would need exactly one awesome hyphenated one.

_Spider-Man_

And tomorrow he could tell exactly nobody about it and of course he would need to keep Aunt May from finding out under all circumstances.

_Guess it's all a bit of a give and take…_

He rounded a corner going hard into the swing. Peter let go of the web and freely flew through the air, zipping over everything on the street beneath him.

_Well, if it's just keeping a secret as a tradeoff for all of this! Nope, can't think of anything better_


	2. Rise and shine, MidTown Science and Tech

_Maybe the sound would just decide to disappear? _Peter's foggy mind hoped.

But it just got louder and louder and soon it felt like something was violently hitting him over the head over and over again.

Peter groaned loudly. Even pushing the pillow against his ears did nothing thanks to his heighted senses, which made this literal torture.

His arm instinctively moved to punch his phone to get it to stop, but he stopped himself at the last second.

His OsBerry phone was already ancient technology and featured a large crack across the screen, begging Aunt May for a new one was the last thing he wanted.

Moaning again, Peter turned it off, carefully this time.

Not that, that did him much good. His body was sore all over. Being awake now felt like a kick in the stomach.

Just keeping his eyes open, took as much energy as moving his beat-up muscles. Maybe he had over done it a bit last night as Spider-Man, but it had been the last day of summer vacation.

Even halfheartedly looking at the time on his phone, his mind couldn't supply a single good reason to get up…like at all…

_There should be a thing where every bad thing you stop; you get to have one day off from school._

_And how many bad things did he stop yesterday? Two…maybe three?_

_Either way, there should totally be a law…_

"This is bad! This is bad! This is really, really bad!" Peter cried, out of breath from running around the apartment, pulling one of his science pun t-shirts over his head and frantically looking for all the stuff he needed.

"Calculator?" May asked, just having finished throwing on her nurse uniform and going around the room, looking for anything else she needed for work.

"Right!" Peter said, getting it from the living room table and throwing it into his bag.

_That should be all…yeah…probably…definitely_

"History textbook?" May asked. "And where are my damn shoes!"

_He knew he had forgotten something! Where had he put that?_

_Great, being late on the first day after summer doesn't look bad at all…_

"Good news! Found the shoes," May shouted. "Brushed your teeth yet?"

No. He totally hadn't, but he could do that while also looking for his books. That wouldn't be a problem, or at least he hoped.

"Ymmou gmmt ymmr lummch?" Peter said, toothbrush in his mouth and kneeling on the floor looking for his book under the sofa.

"What?"

"Your lunch?" Peter repeated. "You don't get lunch in the hospital cafeteria on Mondays."

May froze. She muttered something inaudible and Peter knew she was trying to keep her for starting from swear loudly.

May went into the kitchen and Peter got up and rushed into his room continuing the search.

"I'm making meatloaf tonight. Don't be late," May called from the kitchen.

That made Peter shudder. May's meatloaf had a _certain _reputation.

"I won't be late Aunt May!" Peter called, getting back to searching. He Could worry about the dinner problem later.

There it was!

He wasn't even going to begin to think about how the book had found its way into his comic book collection.

As soon as he got his hands on it, he ran into the bathroom, finished brushing his teeth and then he was dashing for the hallway.

"See you later, Aunt May!" Peter cried, already standing in the door.

May came running out of the kitchen, her expression like she had just remembered something super important. "What about breakfast?" She said, worry in her voice.

"I'll grab some on the way! Love you!"

May thought for a moment. "Okay ," she said, reluctantly. "Love you too, sweetie. Text me later please and be careful," May said, like she had done every morning for months.

"Promise!" Peter called, running down the hallway.

Stuffing his suit into his backpack, Peter emerged out of the conveniently placed secluded alley near school.

Web slinging really made that whole getting to school thing so much less stressful, even with oversleeping he got there just as all the other students started coming in.

Peter joined the stream of students flooding through the school yard and towards the main entrance.

The last time he had gone through that large main door with the MidTown logo featuring the mascot tiger above it, was the day after the end of year field trip to OsCorp.

Back then, he had stormed out of the school, overjoyed that summer had finally come after a seemingly endless year of studying, exams and bullying. Back then he had been Peter Parker, known schoolwide as a nerd and loser.

Little did anyone know, including Peter himself, about what really happened on that end of year school trip to OsCorp.

_Yeah _, Peter thought as he entered the door, he had at least a couple hundred times. _That field trip really did turn everything on its head. Not just the Spider-Man thing._

Peter shook that thought from his mind. _What matters now is Spidey and how he's going to change things_

He was strolling along the busy corridors to his locker. It was loud and messy, all around him people were running to class, talking about their holidays and packing stuff from their lockers. Someone was flying a small drone through the hallway until Ms. Warren shut that down.

He made his way past all the usual anti-drug and bullying posters (as if those ever did anything). There were also posters for all kinds of school events and activities and a few fact posters they had to make about famous scientists like Bruce Banner.

As he walked a familiar dramatic intro played as all the monitors around the hallway turned on. He knew a poorly edited montage of pictures from last year flew over the screen. Peter looked up just as the MidTown logo imaging as a grand finale.

"Rise and shine, MidTown Science and Technology!" Betty Brand, co-host of the student broadcast said, staring directly into the camera. "We hope you had a fantastic summer!" She waved to the viewers.

"Y-yeah, and just like last year, we from the, ehh, MidTown student news club will be…" The other co-host Jason Ionello struggled for words, before obviously looking to the teleprompter on his right. "Ahh, providing you with live coverage of all-important MidTown events."

"So, what will happen this year in MidTown? The highest test scores in the state? Trophies for our sports and academic clubs? Hopefully not a repeat of last year's lasagna incident in the cafeteria. Whatever this year brings, you will hear about it on MidTown news!"

_Oh, I know what it will bring for me all right, _Peter thought to himself _, this is going to be my year. Goodbye high school life as a loser. It's going to be awesome._

Peter went to his locker to put away a bunch of stuff he didn't need and also to stash two vials of web fluid. _Never know when that will come in handy._

"That was soooooo awesome! Did you see this new vid yet! That guy has the best life ever!" Sound from a phone blurred into his ear. Peter turned around to see an amateur video from his fight yesterday evening shoved into his face.

"Hi Ned," Peter said. "What's up?"

"And then that guy with the gun went, 'Got you now'" Ned dramatically reenacted the scene pointing with his fingers. "And Spider-Man was like."

Ned made the web shooting hand gesture, completely ignorant of the fact that anyone might find that weird.

"Yeah, I guess that Spider-Man guy is kind of good," Peter said, failing to keep the smugness out of his voice.

"Good?! Peter, Squirrel Girl is kind of good. Spidey? It's only a matter of time before he leads the avengers!"

"Maybe."

Peter could dream, if this really was his year, why not? Of course, he would need to really impress Mr. Stark for that, and all the other avengers would need to want him to join too.

The bell rang, taking Peter out of his fantasy of shaking hands with Captain America and Ned out of a rant Peter hadn't listened too.

The first few lessons were the standard beginning of school year stuff, with introductions for new teachers and students and overviews of the courses they would have this year.

After that Peter and Ned went to the cafeteria for lunch.

"That new girl with the glasses was kind of cute, right?" Ned asked.

"Yeah, I guess." Peter hadn't really been paying attention. During the downtime he thought about a plan he had worked on all summer.

Then Peter spotted what he had been looking for. Two girls talking in the middle of the cafeteria. "Hang on for a second, Ned," Peter said heading over to them.

"What? Peter?" Ned noticed where he was going. "Peter? Stop. What are you- Oh, great you're doomed."

Peter ignored that.

_All right _, he had thought this all through, this year was going to be different. He just needed to do what he had planned out in his head.

"Hi, what's up?" Peter said, walking up to them and trying to sound casual.

"Oh, ehh, hi Peter, right? What's up? How were your holidays?" the black-haired girl said.

Liz, student president, captain of like five different clubs including the academic decathlon team, cheerleader and overall the most awesome and popular girl in school.

"I just wanted to ask, you know since we've met at academic decathlon last year and since you're, like the best team captain ever, if you would…"

"Would what Peter?" She asked curiously.

"You know, you and me, you know."

"I really don't, Peter."

Peter straightened himself. "You know how the homecoming dance is soon and I just wanted to ask if you could, ehh, if you would go with-"

"Liz! What are you doing!" The blond girl beside Liz cried in a shrill voice. Her face was almost like Peter had broken some sort of natural order by talking to them.

_Yeah, that's Sally Avril alight._

"Stop trying to talk to us normal people, creep!"

"I-I was just…"

Peter shuddered as he felt half the cafeteria turning to look at the drama.

"Let's go Liz!" She said grabbing her by the arm and storming off.

"Bye Peter, see you at decathlon practice," Liz said, as she was being dragged off, giving him an apologetic smile.

_Well that went…_

Before Peter had a moment to think about it, he paused. A tingling in the back of his neck.

"Watch where you're going!"

Peter turned around, but it was too late. He only saw a blur of a skinny brown hair boy falling face first onto the cafeteria floor and his lunch spectacularly clashing into his face.

A row of laughter echoed through the cafeteria.

Peter rushed over. "You're okay?"

Harry Osborn . Along with Ned, Peter's best friend, awesome at building Legos and the legend of Zelda trivia.

Also, son of Norman Osborn and the sole heir to one of the largest companies in the world, that was leading the field in too many areas of science, business and commerce to count.

Was laying on the ground, his freckled face, green shirt and brown vest covered in tomato sauce, although his face probably wouldn't have been any less red from embarrassment if it weren't.

"I'm fine. Thank you," he almost squeaked, as Peter helped him up.

Ned had also come over. "Dude how did you…"

_Hang on._

Peter's eyes closed in on a group of students close by.

_Flash Thompson and all his friends. Of course. _They were laughing the hardest out of everyone in the room.

"Shut up, Flash!" Peter rushed over to him. "You totally just tripped him!"

Flash's smug face didn't lose one bit of humor at that. "Not my fault if he doesn't look where he's going," He said, with fake innocents.

"Let's go, Peter," Ned urged from behind him.

Peter was shaking with anger.

_I'm Spider-Man, I casually beat up criminals, like actual bad guys criminals. I wouldn't let Flash get away with stuff like that anyway._

All the times Flash had gotten away with it flashed before him, which was basically all of Peter's life.

"You should listen to him, Parker," Flash warned. Peter just stood there in anger, trying to think of something to throw back at Flash's insults. Flash didn't waste any time in turning the tables on him. „Or do you want to embarrass yourself even more after that show back there."

_Oh great. Flash had seen that_

Peter suddenly felt very aware that basically the whole cafeteria had their eyes on them.

"Just-just shut up, Flash!" Peter repeated, struggling for a good retort.

"Don't let your anger over getting your heart broken back there, out on me Parker, I can't do anything for the fact that geeks like you don't get girls. Especially not if they creep them out like that."

Flashe's whole group was laughing and a few other people around him joined them.

"I won't let you go around bullying people anymore."

"Oh ho!" Flash chuckled, making himself tall and looking down at Peter. "Puny Parker suddenly got guts? What are you going to do cry about it?"

Peter tried to hold Flash's look. "I'm-I'm…"

_I'm Spider-Man! Yeah, but he couldn't exactly say that._

"You're just embarrassing Parker. Maybe you will feel better if you tell yourself that fake story about you having a Stark industry internship, that you told everyone last year."

"It's not fake…" But Peter's protest didn't carry over the laughter.

"What kind of loser do you gotta be to invent stories like that, right?" Flash turned to ask his group. "Everyone, Tony Stark is Parker's imaginary friend."

Now it felt like every student in the cafeteria had finally joined them in laughing about him.

Any words of protest stuck in his throat. Peter's legs felt like jelly, his heart pounded. He needed to do something.

Ned grabbed him by the shoulder and got him out of there, his head hanging low in defeat.

"Have a good cry on biggie's shoulder," Flash called after them.

"Don't listen to him, Peter," Ned said, as they walked away. "Like, at all. Flash's a total idiot. I think it was awesome what you tried with Liz, although she is way out of our league Peter, like lightyears. Still nice try."

Peter looked at Ned, he knew he was at least trying to encourage him.

They sat down at a table in one of the corners of the room as far away from what happened as possible. Still, Peter felt the occasional stair or snickering directed his way.

_That will give Flash material for weeks_

It all went the completely opposite way he had expected. Over the holidays, he had imagined so many times what it would be like to ask out Liz and put Flash in his place now that he was Spider-Man.

"Hi," came a quiet squeaky voice after they sat a few minutes in silence.

Harry, now cleaned out as best he could, had quietly made his way to their table and sat down next to Ned. His expression was about as low as Peter felt. He couldn't blame him. Peter had diverted the attention a bit, that moment must have sucked for Harry too.

"Thanks for that back there, Pete. S-sorry."

"No problem and it's Flash who should be sorry," Peter said bitterly.

"So how was L.A. Harry?" Ned asked, obviously trying to break the sower mood.

"Oh, ehh, it was fine. My father had a lot of important meetings and conferences and things like that, so I mostly stayed in the penthouse and played video games."

That was another thing Peter had imagined differently. Meeting Harry after not having seen him all summer because his dad had some important OsCorp stuff on the east coast.

"But my father said that he'll be staying here from now on. He said something about the future being in New York." Harry shrugged unsurely.

"I bet it has something to do with some crazy new science stuff!" Ned said, excitedly. "Do you know anything? I mean you live right there in the tower, right?"

"I-I don't really understand that those things and my father doesn't really tell me anything, so …" Harry trailed off, smiling, but rubbing his neck nervously.

"Not like that matters," Peter quickly said. "It's okay."

"You got to tell us if you find something out!" Ned continued even faster, seemingly not having heard either of them. "I mean your dad is the guy that has a tower as tall as the Avenger's in the middle of the city with his name on it." Ned waving his arms wildly. "I would so, give everything to switch places with-au!"

Peter lightly elbowed Ned in the side. "Ned. Calm down." "His dad is Norman Osborn, _whatever _."

Now Ned was an awesome friend, but sometimes Peter just wanted to web his mouth shut.

Peter looked at Harry, who had his head hanging low and Ned's eyes followed him.

"O-okay, I think it's just cool…" Ned said, quietly.

Eventually they decided that the coast was clear enough for them to actually get themselves lunch. Of course, they didn't exactly get anything good being so late.

Peter slogged himself through the rest of his lessons. He avoided everyone except Ned and Harry because of course the story of his embracing run in with both Liz and Flash spread around the school like wildfire.

Sitting in Ms. Warren's science class, Peter was staring out the window across the football field and at two buildings in the distance.

Occasionally he heard whispers behind him and felt the looks in his direction. He tried everything he could not to think about how Flash and his friends got all the material they needed for the rest of the school year on day one.

Instead he imagined what it would be like swinging between the two buildings in the distance.


	3. First real supervillain

"Hey, is this anyone's bike?" Spidey asked, holding up the bike. The guy who had just tried to steal it, webbed to a wall behind him, after a not so spectacular chase through the Queen's sidewalk.

After the chase, Peter had completely lost the things original owner and all the people he asked just walked past and ignored him.

Eventually Peter just gave up, stuck a note from your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man to it that explained the situation to the police who would soon arrive and swung off.

Pretty normal stuff today. He enjoyed helping the people of Queens, he really did. Grand theft bicycles, helping people with directions and maybe even a small-time robbery, but after earlier today he could have really used some action.

He tried not to think about it, but that school day was the definition of a disaster. It had all gone so differently in his head.

Well, at least he had helped a couple people as Spider-Man today and Ned, Harry and he had all agreed that they should meet later at the café near OsCorp tower because Harry got everything there for free.

_So maybe things could still turn out okay today_

Suddenly his phone buzzed in his pocket. Peter landed on a nearby roof to have a look.

_**May**_

_Everything okay? How was your first day? Be careful and see you at dinner. Love you Peter!_

_**Peter**_

_I'm OK. Hanging out with Ned and Harry later. School kind of sucked. Love u 2 and see u later._

Over the summer, May had made it a habit to text him. A lot. And also telling him to text her. And also getting scary mad when he forgot, which she had never before done with other stuff like schoolwork or keeping his room clean or really anything .

Texting when he got out of school, when he was over at Ned's and of course when he was at the Stark internship, but really out being Spider-Man.

He sighed, putting his phone away.

_It's not like she doesn't have a good reason to worry after what happened_

_Whatever _, Peter quickly pushed that thought away, jumping off the building and swinging off.

It was getting kind of late, Peter decided, landing on a roof after taking one last swing around the block.

All in all, pretty quiet around Queens today. No more people to help or bike thieves or anything.

He should be getting out of costume and hitching the subway to Manhattan and OsCorp tower.

Peter was about to crawl down into an alley when his enhanced hearing picked up something in the distance.

_**BOOM!**_

"What the…"

An explosion went off and Peter looked up to see a blue fireball flared up in the distance.

Excited at the prospect of something actually happening, Peter jumped off the roof and went swinging.

After a few swings he landed on a roof and could already see the scene.

Some sort of armored transport had been knocked over on its side. The road had been torn apart by the explosion and there were small blue fires all over the place.

Peter jumped down to have a closer look.

The transport driver had just dragged himself out.

"You okay there, man?"

Then, at the edge of his mind, his Spider-sense tingle and a loud growling sound filled the air, it sounded like Mr. Stark's private plane had the time he had taken Peter on a mission when they first met. Only way louder and rougher, like it was made by scrap metal.

Peter looked up, only to be staggered by a powerful gust of air. The source of the noise had just come into view.

The first thing he saw were the two gigantic metal wings with turbines placed into them. They were strapped onto the back of a man in a leather jacket, wearing an Oxygen Mask. On the man's foot were two massive mechanical claws.

"A mechanical vulture guy… _That _… is officially the most insane thing I have ever seen…" Peter muttered to himself.

Then the man lowered himself onto the transport. With the scrapping sound of metal being bent, his mechanical claws violently dug into it. Then he slowly started to acende.

Peter snapped out of his astonishment. _Can't let that guy get away!_

With a leap he jumped onto the – now in the air and in the vulture guys claws – transport.

"Now buddy, I obviously love the whole technology inspired by nature thing, but I think you should be using it for something different," Peter said, glad that his feet and hands were sticky, as swayed in the wind with the racing wind. "Ever heard of the saying _With great power there must also _-"

The Vulture turned his head to him with a horrible mental grinding on metal sound, his visor shining a blinding green. "Who are you?"

"Well, I'm just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, now do you mind landing?" Peter pointed to the streets below, that were a blur as they zipped past.

"Thought you were a myth. Stay in your neighborhood, kid, you don't get what's going on here. Don't want to have to hurt you."

"Sorry, I only take cliché threats from mammals and insects, not birds." Peter grabbed one of the claws trying to yank it off. "Don't think this belongs to you!"

While pulling Peter noticed a marking on the side of the transport for the first time. His eyes went wide.

_That explains the explosion and crazy flying vulture_

_US federal department of Damage Control, _it said on the side.

This was going to be even better than he could have imagined, Peter grinned under the mask.

Turned out this wasn't just any transport; it was a transport of the top-secret organization Mr. Stark and the government founded to clean up after the Avengers and to handle any super advanced weapons or alien tech that came to earth.

_Awesome. This must be the kind of stuff Mr. Stark deals with all the time. My first real supervillain!_

Then Peter was snapped out of his thoughts, as the ground he was on started to violently shake. The vulture guy, apparently objecting to the uninvited passenger, was shaking the transport in his claw.

Peter tried everything to keep on, but the vulture just shook it more violently.

_Totally jinxed it _, Peter thought, as his usually impressive sticking ability failed him. His grip on the claw was ripped off by the motion and he started tumbling backwards. His stomach dropped as his feet failed to find the ground underneath and he started falling.

"I don't think Pete is showing up anymore…" Harry said, stopping to stare at the clock in the busy café outside OsCorp tower and looked around.

_Weird, Peter is usually never late_

Like always, most customers were professionally dressed business people or scientists working in the building.

It still made him feel a bit uncomfortable and he preferred to sit in one of the corners, but the place made an excellent coffee, so it was fine. Plus, he got things for free, not that that made much of a difference to him.

"It's probably his internship, happened all the time in the summer," Ned explained with a shrug, taking a large zip from his chocolate shake.

"Must be a lot for Pete."

"Are you kidding?! A Stark internship is literally the most awesome thing in the world!"

"I guess…"

_Of course, I would never be considered for that kind of internship. And I should be jealous, that whole science thing isn't for me anyway. Not. Jealous_

"You heard about the new super rare collectors Lego set coming out?" Ned asked.

"Oh, yes, I did! I'm getting an early copy. We can assemble it together if you would like."

"That's crazy!" Ned said, ' _not being able to contain his excitement _' being an understatement.

Harry smiled. _Yeah, assembling it is going to be fun_

Then his eyes caught something.

The TV inside the shop cut to a breaking news story – armature footage of some sort of man in a winged flying machine with a transport in his claw and a red and blue blur balancing dangerously on top of it.

"That guy is crazy..." Harry muttered, watching the TV closely. Then suddenly the red and blue blur fell off. "Wooo, I hope he's okay."

Ned's expression was an absolutely stunned excitement. "That's Spider-Man, dude!" He exclaimed. "Watch it, He was probably about to do some awesome web thing, and everything is going to be fine!"

_Everything is not fine, like the opposite of fine_

He was free falling and only seconds away from being squashed against the ground like an actual Spider.

Then Peter blindly shot a web.

He would have been relieved at the _zip _sound of it connecting, if he wouldn't have felt a shot of pain through his arm as he was pulled along by the web. Looking up, Peter saw that it had connected right onto the flying transport, and he was zipping along with it.

The vulture guy was flying low through the streets off Queens, zipping between buildings. Peter did his best not to crash into any of them as he went.

_Wow, this is crazy_

His arms really hurt, and it was only a matter of time before he was splashed against the side of a building. His power was about to leave him, and he was about to let go to save himself to the ground, when he stopped.

_Damage control tech is probably the most dangerous stuff on the planet and it's getting stolen by that crazy vulture guy_

He couldn't let him get away with all of that. A lot of people would get hurt if these weapons got into the wrong hands and he was the only one who can stop it now.

_I can stop them, so I have to_

Despite his arms feeling like they were about to fall off, Peter climbed his way up the web. Then suddenly his Spider-sense tingled and Peter looked ahead.

He managed to sway out of the way at the last second as he zipped past a tree and then another and then another. The vulture guy was flying over a park now.

He was carried right through the treetops, small branches whipping against him as he went, leaving a million stings of pain.

His whole body hurt as they finally flew over an open area of the park.

But it hurt so much…Peter's fingers were ever so slightly loosening.

_This is so much worse than climbing the rope in gym class without powers was ever was_

Then his left hand let go and the only thing keeping him from falling was his right hand's grip on the web.

Then-

_The weapons. People will get hurt_

Against all the pain, Peter swung his left hand back onto the web and started climbing back up onto the transport.

All the way up he fought the pain. Through the wind clashing against his face and the hurt in his arms. Peter was breathing heavily as he finally crawled his way back to the top.

"Copy that," the vulture said, seemingly not having noticed Peter. "Got rid of the interruption, should still have enough time to get out before damage control responds, tell the big man he will have his delivery ready."

"I-I got to tell you," Peter whizzed. "That was the craziest thing I've ever done; you should quit the super villain act and start a theme park ride."

Again, the vicious green eyes snapped to him.

"Active high-altitude vacuum seal."

And suddenly they were going up, like way up and fast. Out of the corner of his eyes, Peter saw the park shrink.

_Okay, should have really thought more about what to do when I actually got up here_

Peter quickly shot two webs at the vulture's wings, but they were pulled down by the speed at which they were ascending, before even getting close to anything to connect to.

Peter looked down and suddenly felt dizzy.

_Air is getting a little tight_

In a last desperate attempt, he tried pulling at the claw still stuck in the transport.

But then he felt weakness overcome his body, and he tumbled. He felt air brush past his face as he was falling. He saw a blue spot below getting bigger and bigger.

When the impact hit, it didn't feel any better than hitting the ground. The cold took him as he descended into the depths of the water.


	4. Not quite a hero yet

It was cold. Even in summer the dark blue water felt ice cold.

Slowly his senses came back to him, he blindly swam up, desperate for air.

When he finally reached the surface, Peter breathed heavily.

He crawled his body out of the water and onto the lakeshore, feeling completely exhausted. After a few moments of gasping for air on the park grass, he forced himself to get up. The bitter cold felt even worse now with the breeze of the evening wind. He slowly carried his shivering boy through the darkness, uselessly trying to warm himself by rubbing his arms.

Peter was totally not sulking, as he sat on the swing set in a playground near the park. He had taken off his mask and was wringing it out, water droplets falling to the ground and his feet dangling in the air.

_Great _, he thought bitterly. _Getting humiliated Infront of Liz , being Spider-Man changing nothing about Flash pushing me around, having my first real super villain fight and I blowing it. And now I have to get home in a soaking wet onesie_

Totally. Not. Sulking.

Then he looked up to see the outline of the vulture and his price flying off.

_These weapons would be used to hurt people and all that will be on me… _

There was a dark stinging pain through his whole body.

_My fault again_

But then he suddenly noticed something dashing towards the vulture. At first Peter had the stupid thought that it was a shooting star with a tail of light behind it, but as he looked closer, he saw-

"Mr. Stark!" Peter said.

The red and yellow Iron man armor was flying after the vulture. Peter watched in awe, as Mr. Stark's suit flew circles around it's much slower target, shooting laser beams that lit up the night sky as he went. The Vulture, probably realizing the game was up, dropped the transport and made a break for it.

Iron man hovered briefly in the air, probably contemplating pursuing, but then he quickly flew down after the falling damage control transport. _Probably because that tech impacting somewhere in the city would be really, really bad, _Peter thought_._

Just like that the light show was over and Iron man out of view. Peter tried to spot him for another few moments, before giving up and returning to (not) sulking on the swing

_At least the bad guys didn't get the tech, right?_

Then he suddenly heard a buzzing sound coming towards him.

Mr. Stark, probably having just set the transport down safely, made a b-line for him. With a whoosh sound the armor stopped, hovering in front of him and looking down on Peter sitting on the swing.

"You're okay?" Was the first thing Mr. Stark's voice said through the speakers of the suit.

"Yeah," Peter answered, he felt the same jittery excitement he felt every time he met Mr. Stark. "Mr. Stark, you won't believe it! That was the craziest thing ever! That vulture guy was about to get away with the tech, so I jumped onto it, right? And then I fell off, but I shot a web and then I had to dodge all the stuff and climbed back up! Then the Vulture guy went all scary and we suddenly went like a thousand feet in the air and-"

"Breath kid," Mr. Stark cut him off. "I just got one question; what did you think you were doing?"

"What I was doing? I was trying to take down the bad guy," Peter said, confused at the question.

The armor's helmet shook. "Let me rephrase that. Why did you think it was a good idea to jump into a fight like that?"

"Wh-what? That guy wanted to steal that tech," He motioned vaguely at the direction the vulture had escaped to. "I had to take him down."

"Oh! You're going around taking people down now!" Mr. Stark said, sarcastically.

"Mr. Stark, if that tech gets in the wrong hands, people would get hurt. I had to do something!"

"You, not-old-enough-to-shave teenage superhero, just _had _to do something?" Mr. Stark almost snapped at him. Peter was taken aback.

"W-what was I supposed to…" He struggled for words.

"There are people who handle that sort of thing," Mr. Stark said, still an edge in his voice. "Do you think I would let people steal stuff that I'm responsible for protecting?"

"I-I guess- no of course not, I was just…"

There was a mechanically distorted sigh through the suit's speakers. "Kid," he said, calmer. "This is so far above your paygrade."

"But you had to come here so it was super urgent, right?" Peter said, suddenly getting an idea. "If I hadn't been there, he might have gotten away?"

"Oh, I'm not here." Mr. Stark said, his normal light sarcastic tone back. The Iron man masked lifted, to reveal an empty suit. "Conference in Genosha, lucky this place got wifi."

_So, Mr. Stark wasn't actually here talking to me _, Peter didn't know why his heart sank. _Reality check, Mr. Stark's way too busy for me_

"Anyway, struggling to keep up and then falling into a lake, doesn't qualify as helping, kid."

Peter's head fell at that observation. _I tried _…

"Peter, there are a bunch of heroes jumping around, saving the world. We got it covered." Then the armor snapped his fingers to get him to look up. "Here's what you should do. Stay close to the ground, you know like that time you helped an old lady cross the street. Build up your hero game with that friendly neighborhood stuff."

"I can help a lot more than that!" _I must. I have to._

"Saw that," Mr. Stark said simply. "Anyway, got to go, have some safe friendly neighborhood fun, hang out with Ted, or whatever his name is and say hello to aunt hottie for me." The suit repulsors started up. "End call."

"Wait, Mr. Stark-"

"The boss is no longer connected." The robotic voice of F.R.I.D.A.Y, the suit's A.I. said. Peter watched the suit zip off into the night sky.

Being left on the swing looking after the suit as it made his way towards Manhattan, probably to Stark tower, he slowly rocked back and forth.

_Definitely not sulking._

_Building up my hero game and hanging out with Ned, thanks for that tip Mr. Stark. And saying hello to- _Peter shuddered repeating the creepy nickname in his head.

Then his eyes went wide. He leaped off the swing, suddenly painfully aware of how late it was.

He went swinging home as fast as he could.

_Aunt May's going to kill me_

There was the sound of engines rowing and a moment later the boss, massive metal wings on his back, flew in through the opening in the warehouse.

As he landed on the platform and the wings automatically locked themselves into holding the machine, the chubby man in the workshop had to hold onto the Chitari cores he had been tinkering with to keep them from flying all over the place.

The boss stomped down the ramp taking off his Oxygen mask. "God damn it!" He threw the mask into a shelf full of spare parts for Kree battle armor. The tinkerer winced, as it all came crashing down and most of the other people in the workshop turned to look too.

"God damn it!" The boss repeated, before stopping and massaging his nose, thinking. "Under the radar, out of these big jobs that's how we survived for years. Now we got damage control trying to bust us." The boss was pacing up and down the workshop. "_ Big man of crime _… I should have known that was getting in to deep."

"Ehh, boss?" the tinkerer said. The boss snapped towards him. "Your daughter was texting you about some school club meeting she was hosting at your house." He pointed to the phone on the table.

"What did I tell you about looking at my phone?" He snatched it up from the table.

"Sorry, it was just there, and I saw it. You know I'm a curious person by nature."

The boss gave him a weirded look, before typing something into his phone and putting it into his pocket. "We just need to," he muttered more to himself than anyone. "We got to make this week's delivery; can we do that?"

"Without another take? Most of it, probably." They were short on energy cores, but weapons itself could be enough. Why any buyer would need so much of this stuff was beyond him.

"Most of it, right. We need to try getting as much we can," He said. "Scrape everything together. Those defunct cores from last time, try fixing up some of them."

"But weren't you worried about that blowing up the whole place if something goes wrong?" They had been doing this for years, basically since the avengers leaving behind destruction was a thing, and he had never seen the boss like this.

"Do it, fix them up." The boss stormed towards his office.

The hallway of the apartment building was pitch black as Peter fiddled with his key, trying to get it into the lock. He didn't want to risk turning on the light.

Peter suppressed a yawn; he could hear his bed calling out to him. His hands were barely able to hold up the key, let alone getting the stupid door open. Between the day he had and swinging back here at what must be the fastest he had ever swung, he was really done in.

Finally, he managed to get the key in the lock. He had figured his best option was to very slowly and quietly get in. To his surprise it seemed like that plan might just have worked when the light in their apartment was off.

_Maybe May has gone to bed? _Peter hoped. Of course, there had been several calls by her on his phone, _but maybe she had just figured I was with Ned and Harry or something?_

He inched the door close in slow-motion and took very careful steps through the darkness. Just a bit more to his room, this would be the worst time to step on a Lego brick he had left lying around.

_Still no sign of Aunt May, maybe she really did go to sleep_

He was about to step into his room when there was a buzzing. Peter almost jumped, his heart pounding at record speed.

It took him a moment to realize that it was only his phone going off.

**Ned:**

_Yo, how was the SI internship? That's where u were, right?_

A shudder went over Peter's neck. He had totally forgotten about meeting Ned and Harry.

**Peter:**

_Sry for ditching you, dude! Something big came up and they needed me_

**Ned:**

_It's cool, dude no problem I mean SI?! Coolest thing ever_

That was a very typical Ned reaction, he could almost imagine him saying it in his rambling way, but Peter couldn't help but feel bad leaving them hanging. _What kind of friend does that?_

_But I had to help, right? I needed to keep the tech from being used to hurt people, even if my contribution didn't really turn out great in the end_

_School, friends, Aunt May and Spider-Man didn't think this would all be so complicated._

**Ned:**

_BTW did you see the crazy stuff that went down today?_

Ned sent him a link to an online news article with a blurry amateur video. From the thumbnail he could already tell that it was of the Vulture's heist.

**Ned:**

_SM and IM team-up!_

**Peter:**

_More like IM doing all the work. Spidy kind of sucked_

Peter didn't really know why he wrote that, but he felt so frustrated. If that guy would have gotten away, all the people hurt with the weapons would have been on him…

**Ned:**

_No way dude! He was way important! SM slowed the guy down so IM could take him out. Bet SM will be an Avenger fast!_

That…That did make Peter smile and also think. The Vulture guy wouldn't have been so stupid to steal the tech, if Mr. Stark was anywhere close. So maybe he did make a little difference?

Peter had just put his phone back in his pocket when suddenly his Spider-sense kicked in. This time Peter really did jump, as the light was flipped on.

Standing in the living room was Aunt May, her hands on her hips and her foot tapping on the ground. Her expression the burning anger of a thousand suns. There was a hint of bloodshot red in her eyes under her big round glasses.

_I am so done._

"Hi, Aunt May."

May took a deep breath. "Where. _The. hell _. Were you?" The words weren't loud but shaking like an earthquake.

"I-I'm sorry, I just got caught up with-with the Stark Internship," The words came flooding out. "They-they needed me and." Her expression told Peter that she was anything but impressed by his excuses. "I'm sorry I didn't text you, I know I promised and-"

She stopped him by simply breathing deeply.

Peter's heart stung badly. Not only because of how grounded for life he was (although that wasn't exactly a treat either), but because he knew what he had done to her.

Now Aunt May had never screamed at him, of course she had been mad a couple of times and when she did both Peter and Ben had known to not get in her way, but those arguments were super rare.

But standing there Peter was fully convinced that he might not make it out of that apartment in one piece. _Yeah, and I would kind of deserve it._

Then without warning May rushed forward and hugged him, so tightly the air was knocked out of his lungs.

"What?" For a moment Peter was too confused for a reaction.

_What is happening?_

Over his shoulder, he heard May swallow; had she been crying?

Guilt made his whole body feel weak, like throwing up. He had made her wait.

_Just like she had waited for him that night. My fault_

"I know," May swallowed again, as she slowly let go of him and looked him in the eyes. "I know things haven't been easy since…"

Peter looked down, as much as he tried not to think about that, _no they haven't been easy since_

"I'm not stupid, Peter. I know what you have been getting up to."

And Peter thought his heart decided it would stop beating. It couldn't be, it couldn't, it was over May know was literally the end of the world.

"I know that you snuck out all the time during summer, that you spend a lot of time alone, when you told me you were over Ned's house," May said. "And I didn't say anything because I thought you needed time to think. _Hell _, I really needed time to think."

_Wait _, now Peter didn't understand anything anymore. Then his heart started beating again with the faintest bit of hope. _So, she doesn't know?_

For a moment he wanted to be relieved, then he remembered the conversation they were having.

"Sorry, May, I-"

"No," May cut him off. "I mean it's not okay that you didn't tell me. Not at all, but I get it."

"So…" Peter struggled for words. This didn't change the situation, he still messed up. "You're still mad at me, right?"

"Oh, I am," May said, bluntly. "But we're going to need to do things differently."

"What-what do you mean?"

"From now on you get home by ten and if you don't you better be texting me that you're on your way."

Peter opened his mouth for protest, but her look shot down that idea fast and any question of what would happen if he didn't follow the rule:

_Grounded for life? Yeah, if I'm lucky_

"Peter," Her voice and expression turned softer. "We are a team. We can only do this together." Peter felt a bit of helplessness in her voice, a sting of pain shot through his whole body. He felt just as helpless.

"I promise," Peter tried to sound as firm as he could. "I promise you May."

_I won't let her feel like that again, never, not again_

"Good." May nodded.

There was an awkward moment of both of them standing there in silence, not sure what to say or do after what just happened between them.

Then Peter's stomach rumbled loudly. Peter's hand moved over it, as he felt the pain of hunger beating against it. It took him until that moment to notice that being in action all day and barely eating anything could catch up to him.

"I kept some meatloaf in the oven for you," May said, quickly.

They moved to the kitchen and Aunt May got his dinner ready.

"You're a lifesaver!" Peter said, showing a big slice into his mouth. May chuckled at him.

_Who would have guessed that one day Aunt May's famous (more like infamous) meatloaf would taste like the best thing ever?_

While he was eating, they chatted about the day. May told him funny stories about patients in the hospital. As Peter recapped his day between bits.

"Yeah, you know it was school, it sucked."

He left it at that and deliberately tiptoed around the embracing parts of the school day (and all the Spider-Man stuff obviously), so he mostly told her about the new subjects and teachers they would have this year.

"…and that's why neutrino partials can't interact with physical substances. I don't know why they would hire a teacher that doesn't understand that!" Peter said, outraged.

May laughed, Peter knew probably more at him ranting then at the actual situation. Physics wasn't her thing. But Peter enjoyed laughing with her.

He was almost done with the meatloaf. Probably a record for how much a single human had ever survived eating of Aunt May's meatloaf in one sitting.

_Sure, maybe this year everything changing in school didn't work out too great. Not to mention that Liz would probably laugh every time she sees me, and that Flash and his gang would be after me all year. Like always…_

_Also, I ditched my friends which really sucks, but I can make it up to them._

_And, yeah, maybe Spidey totally blew it against his first super villain, but, as Ned said, he had helped a little bit, right? Okay, I might not quite be a hero yet, but I'll get there._

_Maybe this day wasn't great but I have the best Aunt in the universe to come home to._

_Guess it's all a bit of a give and take._

Peter smiled at May and ate the last piece of mediocre meatloaf.

_Nope, can't think of anything better._

**End of issue 1**

**In The Next Issue of** _Spider-Man: Swinging Home_: Peter faces the high school storm, as teachers won't give him a break, Flash is still determined to make his life hell, Harry having a terrible day and a new ambition. Also Peter meets the newest member of the academic decathlon team.

Turns out his secret identity and school don't mixing as easily as he thought

Can Peter manage all that comes with his two lives?

Find out next time!


End file.
